So did you see that Walmart is quietly changing their name? Yep, it is known formally as Walmart Stores, and they are dropping the 'stores' from their name! Why? Because they are the largest company in the world in terms of sales and they want to stay that way! Amazon just jumped into the grocery business, so Walmart wants to increase their online sales because they know the buying online trend is not going away! All the traditional department stores are going more and more to online sales. Once big names like Macy's, Sears, etc., are closing brick & mortar stores and moving to online sales. Malls are quickly becoming a thing of the past, with anchor stores shutting down!

Why does this matter? Why am I telling you this? I am proving that, as more and more consumers and more and more companies are competing for the NEW top location (not the corner lot at the busy intersection), the Google ranking is going to become even more important than ever. But you won't get there by accident!

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89% of consumers now search online before making a purchase of a product or service! That means that only 11 people out of every 100 will pick up the phone and call without searching. If you don't have a website or have one that is not ranking on page one, your business is probably not doing very well. Not only that, but when was the last time you saw a phone book? Even if they are looking for a phone number, they are going to do a search. Here's another shocker, 96% of searchers never go beyond page one of the results page! That means if you're on page 2, you're not getting a lot of visits to your website.

The NEW CORNER lot I mentioned earlier is the top spot in the Google map! 33% of consumers pick the business that is in the number 1 spot. If that's you, you're getting 33 calls or visits for every 100 searches. Big DEAL? #2 gets 18%, #3 about 11%. If you take the 4% away that will continue on to page 2, you're left with 34% distributed among the rest of page 1. But there's more, of that 34%, most will have picked their company before they get to the middle of the page, which is about the 5th or 6th listing!

I promise you ONE thing, most of the time, the company at the number 1 spot in the map, has an SEO person or company optimizing their online presence! They understand that SEO is the bill that pays the bills. Generally, one or 2 sales a month will pay for their SEO costs. SEO is not a one and done activity, this is a dog eat dog world and if you become the #1 business on page 1, you knocked somebody out of that position and they WILL see a hit to their sales. You become the target, so your SEO person or company will have to fight to keep that position! Just as you have a manager for a brick & mortar business, so too do you need a person or company to manage your online presence. That's SEO!